The weekend started off picture perfect. Our arrival in Saint Petersburg, Friday afternoon was greeted with sunshine and 70 degree weather! A quick 15min drive from the airport to our hotel, which was most conveniently located on turn 8 of the downtown street course, found us right on time to catch a few IZOD IndyCar practice laps. Let me just say, if you can hold back a smile when the cars come thundering down the track…you’re better than me!
The track went hot at 8am Friday, Saturday and Sunday with either practice, qualifying or racing action scheduled until 6pm each day. The main attraction for most was certainly the IZOD IndyCar series. However, there were other preliminary events compiling the ‘Road to Indy’; several racing series where drivers can progress through the ranks to ultimately qualify as professional IndyCar drivers if they’re good enough. There’s the Star Mazda, USF2000 and Firestone Indy Lights series, all of which contain open wheel race cars similar to Indy cars though a little smaller and less powerful. Then there was the Acura Sports Car Challenge (World Challenge Championship) which hosted modified production cars much like those found in the GT2 class of the ALMS. Unfortunately no BMW’s, so I was left cheering for the StopTech Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car for the last race on Saturday (StopTech is a great company that makes great braking systems for BMW, so…)
Sunday morning we were all thrown a big question mark as dark rain clouds started rolling in. So I was able to steal some time with Indy Official and prior Indy Champ, Mr. Al Unser Jr., Sunday morning (Al’s a great guy who also acts as a consultant and advocate for Baltimore Racing Development.) He informed me that while we [IndyCar] do race in the rain, we won’t race if there’s standing water on the track for the safety of the drivers. As the morning progressed, the dark clouds just kept coming and a steady rainfall followed. Ultimately, the Indy Lights race was shortened when thunder and lightning began and the Indy race was postponed until 10am Monday morning as St Pete’s was hit with a pretty nasty storm.
The next morning the rain had ceased but left the track under wet and slippery conditions. I like to think of rain as the great equalizer and determinant of who the best drivers really are. I’d say it was around 10:30am when the green flag dropped and 24 cars took speed! Right away the slippery conditions were evident as Milka Duno spun out in the pace lap and Dario Franchitti in the beginning of the race. 100 laps later 17 of the original 24 cars were able to finish. There were some close hard fought battles throughout the race but I think I was most impressed by Dario; after a 13th place start, he fell back to last after a slight spin, was able to regroup and fight all the way back to 5th! I’m reluctant to say had the race been 10, 20 laps longer, he might have won the way he was going! Nonetheless, Will Power, winner of the last Indy Grand Prix in Sao Paula, was fast and consistent as he took 1st followed by Justin Wilson, Ryan Briscoe and Helio Castroneves. Here’s a link to the full list of results: http://www.indycar.com/schedule/raceresults/55-izod-indycar-series/1800-honda-grand-prix-of-st-petersburg/
Who else was there, any remarks to add?
The next Indy race will be April 11th in Alabama followed by the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach where we’ll see the ALMS on Saturday and IRL on Sunday the weekend of April 17th! This event will be much like what BRD is proposing to host here in Baltimore and we’d love to hear your thoughts!
Jason
www.baltimoreracingdevelopment.com
- per Tom’s request in response 1, here’s the photo -
IZOD IndyCar Model, Cameron
She can also be spotted here… http://www.indycar.com/
Normally I don’t do photos but since she asked nicely…yeah. No..no, she was very nice though and we look forward to seeing her here for the Baltimore Grand Prix!
